Bridge Street Restaurants Creative In Space-Making

PHOENIXVILLE, PA — Bridge Street in Phoenixville is a study in creative solutions for outdoor dining.

Borough businesses have made the best of the pandemic's limitations, making sidewalks, parking lots and decks into dining space. Outdoor covered glider-booths at the Great American Pub, a improvised parking lot dining room next to il Granaio, and simple sidewalk tables everywhere made a way for customers to dine at a distance, and for businesses to stay afloat.

Restaurants and bars everywhere in Pennsylvania are readying to move to indoor dining at half capacity on Sept. 21, but meanwhile, they've been pulling out all their creativity to make space for outdoor seating, while the weather allows.

This photo collection shows what would be hard to describe. Businesses downtown and around town, have set up enjoyable spaces with bright umbrellas and plants to create atmosphere where there was none. Patch's walk down Bridge Street was in mid-afternoon, so the crowds were between meals. The seating accommodations, though, were easy to view.

Servers and hostesses said business has been pretty good, under the circumstances, and that weekends especially have been busy over the summer. But, most added that it depends on the weather. Rain chases the crowd away when dining is mostly outside.

As colder weather comes, Gov. Tom Wolf announced last week restaurants could operate at 50 percent of their indoor occupancy limits, starting on Sept. 21.